The High Court proceeded with a judicial review case determining whether the UK’s decision to continue arms sales with Saudi Arabia was lawful in the context of possible war crimes in Yemen. Opinion piece discussing the whitewashing of abuses by the UK government. First published in The Canary on 8 February 2017: Last year, […]

Yemenis are starving in an aggressive war that shows no signs of resolve, but the UK continues to whitewash its weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. First published in The New Arab on 26 January 2017: The UK has a special relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, enjoying good trade ties; and Saudi Arabia is […]

Powerful nations are losing sight of what the ‘responsibility to protect’ really means First published in The New Arab on 7 October 2016: Powerful nations are losing sight of what the responsibility to protect (R2P) really means, as it is often equated with military intervention. But obligations under this principle are much wider, and […]

While the US’s steps towards greater transparency concerning its drone programme may appear disingenuous, the UK needs to start moving in a similar direction. First published in The New Arab on 21 July 2016: A recent report from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), designed to present some transparency to the US drone programme, has […]

The nature of war has well and truly changed. Experts have commentated that conflict is now more protracted and marred with brutal and ‘dirty’ strategies. That applies to the conflicts we know about – what about those we don’t. War seems to be acting out in more covert ways supposedly in the pursuit of national […]

Suicide bombings – a chilling and archetypal representation of terrorism for the West – have increased year-on-year, and 2015 has seen the most number of suicide attacks led by Improvised Explosive Devices to date. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) reported that 10,538 persons were killed or injured in suicide attacks with 9,109 of the victims being civilians. This is a 78 percent escalation over […]

Hypocrisy in international relations is not strange among superpowers, and is often part of the realpolitik of the global diplomatic stage. Hence, when America condemns Russia for the harm caused to the civilian population in Syria, it does so while being complicit in the same in Yemen, where its ally, Saudi Arabia, is leading an […]